Monitoring Country
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Feral horses

Equus caballus
Feral horses

Horses are large, herbivorous, one-toed hoofed mammals. In Australia, feral horses are not true wild horses – they are once-domesticated animals (and their offspring) that have escaped captivity. Horses have significant cultural and heritage value to Indigenous and non-indigenous people, however feral horses are pests. 

Feral horses are a threat to healthy Country and native species

Feral horses are considered pests because they:

  • Spread weeds via their hair and dung
  • Increase soil erosion via trampling vegetation and creating tracks
  • Degrade/foul waterways and waterholes via wallowing and dust bathing
  • Compete for resources (food, shelter) with native animals
  • Damage native vegetation by overgrazing and ring-barking
  • Threaten many endangered ecological communities, animal, and plant species

 ‘Habitat degradation and loss by Feral Horses (brumbies, wild horses), Equus caballus’ has been nominated to be listed as a key threatening processes to native species under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Four National Parks currently have feral horse management plans:

Managing feral horses

Feral horses are difficult to manage as they are large animals that are widespread (often in remote areas), and as controlling feral horses often causes public anger. Best methods for managing feral horses are shooting (ground or aerial), fencing, controlling fertility, and immobilisation/capture and removal. 

Aboriginal Name Language Group
A-Yarraman Ngandi
Hos/Ojij Kriol
Jarrangu Wubuy
Wawi/Yarraman Marra
Yarraaman Yuwaalayaay, Gamilaraay/Gamilaroi/Kamilaroi
Yarraman Rembarrnga/Ngalakgan
Yarraman' Ritharrnu
Other common names: brumby

placeSpecies Records

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Feral horses occurrence records © Atlas of Living Australia

Where they are

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Distribution
Feral horses are most abundant in central semi-arid Australia, in the savannas of the Top End, and in the mountains of New South Wales and Victoria.
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Habitat
Feral horses prefer flat, grassy areas, but can adapt to rocky and mountainous areas, forests, and woodlands.
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Where they sleep
Feral horses sleep in short bursts, only a few hours per day, throughout the day and night. They have different types of rest, and usually sleep somewhere shaded.
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Where they eat
Feral horses mostly eat grasses and flowering herb plants. They will sometimes eat leaves, buds, and fruits.

Feral horses look much the same as domesticated horses; a range of colours and patterns, which can be regional. They often look dirtier and less groomed than captive horses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feral horses

Feral horses. Credit: Kai Squires.

  • where feral horses do and don't live
  • how many feral horses live on your Country
  • how well management of Country and feral horses is working

If you monitor the same place at the same time every year, you can see if there are changes to feral horses on Country.

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Remember Ethics and Permits

Any time you do work that might disturb or interfere with native animals and vegetation, particularly threatened species, you need to check with the state authorities to see if you need any approvals, such as scientific licences or animal ethics committee permits.

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Camera Traps
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ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING METHODS
What you can learn
  • Where feral horses live:
    • Occupancy – the proportion of sites occupied by a species.
    • Changes over time – are species being detected at the same sites every year, or are they disappearing from some and/or appearing at other sites?
    • Habitat preferences – does the species only occur in particular habitats?
  • Detection frequency – how often are they being detected in an area?
  • Behaviour – what are they doing in the photos?
  • Activity – you can know when they are active or passing through areas. This can also be used as an indicator of how large the population might be.
  • You can collect data from seeing feral horses in an image. You might be able to identify their age, sex, group size, health (skinny or fat) etc
Using it the right way

Camera traps can be used to monitor feral horses on Country. They can be set to automatically take photos or videos when an animal passes the camera. You can make your monitoring more efficient and cost effective by monitoring multiple species (including native and introduced species) with this method.

You will need to buy good quality remote cameras, but not much training is needed for deploying cameras or identifying species in the images. Images can also be processed first with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, which can be useful when you have large numbers of images.

Cameras are a great way to monitor feral horses if you know, or are fairly confident that, they are on your Country. Feral horses are easily to identify from photos. You can put out lots of cameras out and cover large areas, increasing the chance that you will detect them. They’re often not far from a water source which helps with choosing where to put cameras.

When planning to do a camera survey:

  • Feral horses use lots of different habitat types, so make sure the cameras are spread across all of the different major habitat types found on Country. If possible, have replicates in each habitat type.
  • Use cameras in areas suitable for camera trapping i.e. open enough to take photos, or along trails, good access
  • Avoid putting cameras in areas prone to flooding or becoming seasonally inaccessible, or make sure you collect cameras before it becomes inaccessible
  • Feral horses are generally diurnal.
  • If there is an obvious path or area that feral horses use, you can set up cameras to face this path. Angle the camera down the path, so that you increase the amount of time the camera has to take pictures as feral horses pass by.
  • Feral horses have a large body, so should easily trigger the camera sensors. If you use the standard camera trapping set up (height of 30 - 40 cm from ground) to monitor them you might only see their legs or lower half, so consider increasing the height to ~ 1 m, but be mindful that this might mean you won’t see some smaller animals easily
  • Whenever possible, proof image classifications (including images with “nothing” in them), especially when using AI.

Primary sources

This landing page was developed using the following sources:

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